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Thursday, 31 March 2016

Sara over at MTBFR has posted this great pic of George in 1969, and asks which house it is. It's the living room at Kinfauns:

George is picking up a cutout of Sri Mahavatar Babaji...:

...the very one used on you know wot:

Sri Mahavatar Babaji is featured in one of George's favourite books, Yogananda's Autobiography of a Yogi (and was also the name of one of John's cats, trivia fans). Google away for further info, if ye will. There's also an intriguing glimpse of George's record collection to the right, but the resolution isn't quite good enough to identify much of it. I think I spot Electronic Sound, though. Anyone able to identify anything else?

Thursday, 24 March 2016

Regular readahs will know of my fondness for Pete Shotton's tome "In My Life", and so I am always interested to track down a locale featured therein; in this case the corner cupboard in the living room of the (Dairy) Cottage. John lived here (in the cottage, not the cupboard - that would have been ridiculous) for a short period as a very small boy with his parents, and when the place was later occupied by his aunt Harrie he became a frequent visitor, such that a cupboard was designated "his", containing whatever possessions, drawings and writing he'd accumulated during his time there.
Pete recalls going round to the Cottage in December 1963 to find John emptying the aforementioned, and filling "a large canvas bag with books and papers", including "a stack of paintings, most of which dated back to a period when he was loath to paint anything but horses."
The Cottage is currently up for sale, full, according to the estate agent, of "original features", and so I reckon that modest cupboard visible in the living room is the very one that used to be John's, and thus was once filled with stuff that, were it all to come up for auction now, would probably be worth more than the house itself:

Monday, 14 March 2016

Here it was, at 5 Somers Crescent, that George Martin lived for around 20 years, from 1966 on. According to the Beatles' London, "it's likely that all the Beatles came here and certain that Paul did on many occasions."

George, naturally, had a piano installed, possibly in this very room, upon which arrangements for strings etc. would be composed. By "this very room", I mean the living room above, obviously, and not the kitchen, below, although who knows?

There are balconies on either side of the aforementioned living room:

Actually, this place reminds me a bit of Whaddon House, where Brian and George and Ringo all lived for a time. Both Whaddon House and Somers Crescent would have represented the height of modernity in the early 1960s.

Saturday, 12 March 2016

Yet more out-takes from the 29th of June 1967 session at Kenwood, and these two will be up for grabs at the Tracks auction in April. Nice!
In other news, I note that the page hit count round these parts is now over a million. I do nothing to publicise things, update randomly and infrequently, and am not the most technologically savvy person in the world, so it's quite possible that anyone with, say, a new Twitter account can expect a million hits by lunchtime on the first day, but still, a million hits! For this nonsense! It blows my tiny brains out of my nose.
So, may I just proffer a thank you to everyone who has contributed in whatever way, and to you readahs in general? And now be about yer business:

Wednesday, 9 March 2016

Were ye to offer a wager that in, say, 1000 years time, the world will not have been burned to a crisp by religious fanatics/asteroids/"Brexiteers"/ etc., I wouldn't take it. Spread betting may be all well and good, but I am no fool.

However, were ye to further offer a bet on the likelihood of two words still being in the dictionary in 1000 years time, in the charred remnants of the world (and it is at this point that the logic of my argument falls to pieces, and not for the first time)... errr...

Anyway, the basic point is that in 1000 years time, Jah willing, people will still be using the words "Beatle" and "flange".

And as long as civilisation staggers onwards, a doff o' the cap is in order to George Martin.